A View to a Thrill

An exciting development is a new link with the optical company Opticron, whose binoculars I have been recommending to members of birding classes or tour groups for more than two decades. Now it is official. Link here.

So I wanted to test-drive Opticron’s headline-grabbing Imagic 8×42 binoculars for myself. Where better than Aigas Field Centre and my week-long Autumn Birds programme. Not only did the bins face the kaleidoscopic light conditions of the Scottish Highlands and the night-vision requirements of Aigas’ badger hide but, as always, we were looking at creatures as varied in size as wood ants and bottle-nosed dolphins.

The binoculars passed all these tests with flying colours. I found the robust feel and weight of them really comfortable. They are a little lighter than my previous 8×32 binoculars. One glitch was that they focus towards infinity with the focus wheel running anti-clockwise and both of my previous binoculars work the other way. It entailed a little bit of adjustment. And I also found the attaching and adjusting of the main lanyard unnecessarily fiddly. But where it really matters – optically – they are superb.

So too the Opticron MM4 60 ED telescope, which I tested with a 12-36x zoom lens. In fact the first bird that I and the group looked at through this little gem was a pair of adult White-tailed Eagles over their eyrie. It was a wonderful thrill.

The Aigas rangers all have Swarovski equipment and superb it is, but I was hugely impressed that this little fellow held its own. It truly is excellent. Obviously you are gaining hugely from its tiny size. For example my other scope weighs a hulking 1.9kg (4lb 4oz in old money). The Opticron MM is just 950gm (2lb 2 oz), less than half the weight. On this occasion I had a pretty robust tripod for those blustery Scottish conditions, but the scope’s light weight and compactness made a huge difference to my shoulders. I could easily imagine using it with a monopod without much loss of stability. it really is convenient.

Yet what was most impressive was the clarity of the image. It is pin sharp and the light-gathering of the 60mm object lens owes nothing much to the far larger telescopes of the Aigas rangers. One detail of the Opticron MM4 is the additional fine-tuning focus knob next to the main wheel. At first I found it a little confusing, but once I worked out the advantages and function of it, it was really helpful. Another bonus is the 12x minimum-magnification option, which gives you a really wide-angle image. That is very helpful especially when clients are playing with it for themselves and are unfamiliar with the intricacies of scope-use. Essentially they can find what they want to look at. Then zoom in.

The real merit of this Opticron kit comes into tight focus when you look at the price tags for upper-end binoculars and telescopes. Anyone paying close to £4,000 for a high-end ‘bins-and-scope’ combination has every right to expect the sine qua non. But I think both of my new optics stood up in all field conditions, even when the North Sea was pounding ashore at Fraserburgh in northerly-backed black winter waves. The bins loved it. In terms of value for money they are absolute winners.

Here are some wildlife highlights for good measure: (top) gannets off the Grampian coast at Rattray lighthouse, (middle) pink-footed geese over the same spot and (btm) one of Aigas’ delightful regular pine martens.